British Campaign and Gallantry Medals

A civil O.B.E. and Great War M.C. group of four awarded to Captain Walter Murray Ablewhite, King’s Royal Rifle Corps

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Civil) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt, hallmarks for London 1927; Military Cross, G.V.R., reverse inscribed, ‘Lt. W. M. Ablewhite, M.C. Colchester, 7th K.R.R.C. 1st Jan. 1918’; British War and Victory Medals, M.I.D. oak leaf (Capt) mounted for display, good very fine (4) £900-1100

O.B.E. London Gazette 1 January 1931. ‘Captain Walter Murray Ablewhite, M.C., Steward of the Bethlem Royal Hospital’.

M.C. London Gazette 1 January 1918. ‘T./Lt., K.R.Rif. Corps.

M.I.D. London Gazette 25 May 1917.

Walter Murray Ablewhite was born in Boston, Lincolnshire on 25 December 1887. Employed as a Poor Law Official and a former member of the Bloomsbury Rifles, he attested for the Royal Fusiliers at London on 20 August 1914, aged 26 years, 8 months. Posted to the 8th Battalion, he served in England. He was discharged on 26 March 1915 to a commission in the 12th Battalion Essex Regiment. Later with the King’s Royal Rifle Corps he served in France, was mentioned in despatches and awarded the M.C. Captain Ablewhite was demobilised on 19 January 1919.

In June 1919 Captain Ablewhite was appointed Steward of Bethlem Hospital, Beckenham, Kent, a post he held until his retirement in March 1948. For his services at the hospital he was awarded the O.B.E. in 1931. Walter Murray Ablewhite, latterly living at 109 Woodside Road, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, died on 29 March 1972. With a quantity of copy service papers, gazette extracts, birth and marriage certificates and other research.